Congress has just made a provision to use legal weed for research into the infrastructure law

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Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress have come up with a new plan to make it easier for scientists to get access to quality cannabis for research.

This weekend the Senate released the final draft of a massive infrastructure bill that would invest billions of dollars in modernizing the country’s failing highways and transportation systems. On the surface, this bill has nothing to do with weed, but lawmakers managed to include a new provision that would allow clinical researchers to study cannabis purchased from state pharmacies.

Legislators have cleverly managed to incorporate this seemingly incoherent provision into transport legislation by playing with the conservatives’ fear of stoned driving. The provision would require the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to prepare a public report on the risk of cannabis-impaired driving within two years of the bill being passed. However, the bill also includes additional provisions to ensure that scientists can use high quality cannabis for this research.

This Restricted Driving Report should include recommendations for establishing a national clearinghouse to “collect and distribute marijuana samples and strains for scientific research that includes marijuana and marijuana-containing products retailed to patients or consumers in a state are legally available, ”marijuana moment reports.

The Transportation Department has two years to work out these recommendations, and the bill doesn’t specify exactly when this research clearinghouse will actually open its doors. To improve researchers’ access to high quality cannabis during this process, the bill would also allow scientists to examine “samples and varieties of marijuana and products containing marijuana that are lawfully offered to patients or consumers” in states where Cannabis is legal for medicinal purposes or for adults.

This provision bears striking similarities to the Medical Marijuana Research Act (MMRA), a stand-alone research law passed by the House of Representatives last year. However, the Senate held back its vote on this bill in hopes of passing the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, a far more progressive bill that would end the federal marijuana ban entirely.

The U.S. government is already providing a source of legal cannabis to qualified researchers, but the quality of this weed is so notoriously poor that scientists fail to touch it with a ten-foot pole. The DEA granted the University of Mississippi the exclusive right to grow legal research weed back in the 1960s, but this institution deliberately limits its plants to a maximum THC content of 8 percent. Researchers have found that the university’s cannabis is actually more hemp than marijuana, and some samples have been covered in mold.

The researchers eventually filed several lawsuits asking the DEA to license additional breeders to offer a wide range of research-quality cannabis. A federal court eventually forced the agency to take action, but progress is still moving at a snail’s pace. This spring, the DEA announced that it would finally accept applications for further producers.

Although the application process is now allegedly in the final phase, the DEA has not yet announced a final schedule for the opening of the new cultivation facilities. But if the Infrastructure Act is passed with the research provisions intact, cannabis researchers can start new studies without waiting for the DEA to work together.